Color
Magic: The Gathering has five distinct colors of mana, plus colorless mana which technically is not a color but behaves in much the same way. Each color has a theme. Spells that use that color of mana tend to share a certain strategy or style of gameplay. For example black mana has a death theme, and red mana has a fire and destruction theme. See the Themes section below for more details. Each color has an icon associated with it, as shown in the gallery below. Color_W.png|White Color_U.png|Blue Color_B.png|Black Color_R.png|Red Color_G.png|Green Color_C.png|Colorless Card Color Cards have colors too. A card's colors are the same as the colors of mana in its mana cost. A card that only has generic or colorless mana in their cost are said to be colorless. Cards that have the devoid ability are also colorless no matter what colors are present in their mana cost. Most of the time while cards are on the battlefield, the color of cards isn't that important. Sometimes, however, a card's color can be important. Many cards have protection from certain colors, and others can't be blocked except by creatures with the same color as them. Many black spells can only destroy non-black creatures. White Focuses on healing and restoration, with the ability to utilize many smaller creatures quickly. White spells often use mechanics such as gaining life or preventing damage. White has many creature removal spells, but these usually has restrictions on them; for example only being able to target attacking or blocking creatures. White also has the best access to board wipe spells. Blue The power of control. Blue is all about not letting your opponent make his moves, and ensuring your own. It also boasts some of the best draw power in the game. Blue is the only colour that can frequently interact with spells on the stack. Black The color of death and decay. Black is about one thing, and one thing only: Winning. Even if it means having to hurt yourself in order to hurt your enemy more, or to hurt yourself to get more. Black has great versatility, but this often comes at the expense of costs beyond mana such as payment of life or sacrificing creatures. Red The color of fire. Red has the ability to burn through your opponent's Life quickly, and mercilessly. Red is all about impulse and passion. Act first, think later. Red's 'burn' spells can usually be used as creature removal or to deal damage to the opponent directly. Red creatures are more likely to have high power than toughness than vice versa. Red tries to win quickly. Green The power of nature and growth, green focuses on sheer brute force, and power-ups, with the drawback that some of these cards have high converted mana cost, but this is offset by the fact that green has the best ability to ramp of all colours, as several green cards allow you to play more lands than the usual one-per-turn limit, and there are green creatures that can tap for mana. Colorless Colorless mana is a mechanic used in Oath of the Gatewatch which is a card set that is not part of MTG Arena and as such has no importance in the game as there are no cards that require colorless mana to cast. Some cards in MTG arena, however are sources of colorless mana. The only use colorelss mana can be put to in the game is to pay generic mana costs. Generic Mana Generic mana means mana of any color. It is usually to been seen in the mana cost of cards. For example means 2 mana of any color. As noted above cards that only contain generic mana in their mana cost are said to be colorless. Ally and enemy color pairs The colors of MTG are arranged in a color wheel sometimes referred as the color pie. Adjacent colors in the wheel are considered to be allies, opposite colors in the wheel are considered to be enemies. Allies frequently have abilities that help each other out so mix well in a deck, enemies tend not to mix well together. The ally color pairs are: ( ), ( ), ( ), ( ) and ( ). The enemy color pairs are: ( ), ( ), ( ), ( ) and ( ). Themes *White, the color of order, healing, justice, and light '''but also authoritarianism, subjugation and bureaucracy. It's produced by plains. *Blue, the color of knowledge, reason, and trickery, the elemental power is '''water. It's produced by islands. *Black, the color of death, darkness, despair, selfishness, and amorality, but also individuality and ambition. It's produced by swamps. *Red, the color of chaos, destruction, war, and fury, as well as lightning and fire. It is the color of love and emotion, as well as freedom and warmth. It's produced by mountains. *Green, the color of life, nature, growth, instinct, and interdependence. It's produced by forests. Guilds (2 color combinations) Two-color combinations are sometimes referred to as the names of one of ten Ravnica guilds. The reason for this is that two very popular sets in Magic's past were focused around ten guilds, each representing a two-color combination, struggling for supremacy in a large urban environment. The names of these guilds are: Shards & Clans (3 color combinations) Similarly, three-color combinations are sometimes assigned names from Magic's in-lore factions.